Dancing Ladies

by Marilyn Gardiner

  "Where's my mitt? Did you bring it in yet?” Max left the room with a great whoop. “Macadoodles, here I come!” He caromed off the hall door, righted himself and barreled on down the hall.

  She glanced quickly around the room one last time. As a child, when awakened by a storm, her mother had always said, “If you listen to the wind long enough, you begin to believe all kinds of things.” And she'd listened to the wind all night as she drove, fighting the wheel and wet pavements and her own fears. But she wasn't quite ready to believe in ghosts.

  Max ran ahead, down the steps and out the front door. She heard his feet clattering over the porch and down the steps to the sidewalk. Kate shook her head. Shadowy figures, indeed. Unwelcoming atmosphere. Girl, you've got to stop imagining tragedy waits behind every door. The bad stuff is in the past. This is a new beginning.

  Following Max, she stopped at the wall mirror across from the foot of the stairs to see how much residual damage was evident from the night. Dark circles around her eyes, likely, from a sleepless night. Her hair would be a mess. Before she faced the public, possibly people she might know, she ought to repair the damages. She searched in her purse for a brush.

  The mirror was old. It had come down through, Kate couldn't even remember how many generations. The glass was wavery and a bit dim, but no one had ever wanted to tamper with changing it. The frame was heavy, ornately carved and quite valuable. Beautiful, exquisite workmanship was evident in every line.

  An antique dealer had once tried to dicker with her mother over a possible sale. But Kate and her mother had agreed that it was part of their heritage and were not interested in selling. Now she let her purse strap fall back over the newel post, lifted the brush to her corkscrew-curly hair and turned to the mirror.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The strong, honeyed scent of the same flowers she'd smelled in the pantry swept over her. The heavy, cloying smell wasn't roses at all. It was gardenias. Gardenias! Her heart seemed to stop. A face stared back at her. Her face, but ... No, not her own face, but one that looked horrifyingly like her. Dark hair in a loose wanton mass cascaded around an oval face. An oval face with eyes ... Eyes...

  A bone-crushing, enervating cold permeated her entire body. Gardenias! Leah's scent! The smell threatened to suffocate Kate. She couldn't breathe. An icy wash of fear skimmed over her arms and her spine went suddenly slick with terror. In the mirror, the eyes blazed with a hatred so intense Kate was stunned. The enmity was so strong it seemed to shoot, like electricity, from the mirror straight into her soul.

  No! The whisper became a silent scream, filling her head, echoing off the walks, lodging like a spike in her head. Oh God, no! Leah, you're dead!

  Two

  Clear Morn ‘Awakenings'

  Clusters of dainty white blossoms on tall stalks. Cattleya Mericlone.

  Somehow—she would never remember the details—she left the house, drove to McDonald's with Max, and drank a glass of orange juice while he scarfed down two Egg McMuffins. With a queer sense of detachment, she had stopped at stoplights, found a parking space, spoken to people she'd known since the days of skinned knees, and now sat across a table from Max, clutching car keys in her sweating hand. All without having run down any pedestrians or insulted someone who cared about her. It was amazing in a once-removed sense.

  Reality set in with Max's repeated question. “When can we go get him? You said I could have a dog when we got here."

  A dog. Dogs did not come back from the dead. Dogs did not frighten you out of your senses by appearing in mirrors where they had no earthly right to be. Dogs were safe. But what in the world had happened? The face that looked back at her from Grandma's mirror simply could not have been her. Leah. Could not!

  "Mom? You promised I could have a dog.” The word was surrounded by italics.

  With effort Kate brought her mind into focus. “We will get a dog, Max. Give us a chance to settle in first, will you?"

  He was jiggling a leg and all but bouncing in the seat. “When? Tomorrow? Can we go tomorrow?"

  "Maybe. Probably. But we haven't even carried in everything from the van, yet. My orchids are probably overheating and—"

  "We parked in the shade and you opened all the windows."

  "—and you haven't yet been up to your room or—"

  "My mitt. Have you seen my mitt?"

  "And that's another thing. Aunt Bree signed you up for a T-ball league, but we have to call your coach and see about practices. We can do that this afternoon."

  "Okay. Today my T-ball team and tomorrow the dog. Right?"

  Max was big on nailing down plans. Everything had to be carved in concrete before he believed it would actually happen. Even then, he wasn't entirely trusting. This was a recent development. Something else to chalk up to the negligent father-of-the-year, Huey Foster.

  "I will try. Try my best. This is not a cross-your-heart promise, Max. But I will try very hard to make arrangements so that we can look for a dog tomorrow. That's the best I can do. Okay?"

  Max stared hard at her. “Okay. Let's go home so I can find my mitt."

  The drive home was all too short. Despite trying to force the thought from her mind while she drove down the pretty road lined with houses bearing flowers in window boxes, it persisted. Would she still be in the mirror, staring back? Would she be in the house? Could she be in the house?

  No. Of course not. Maybe she hadn't been there at all. Maybe Kate had imagined it from all the times in the past when she'd seen a mirror image looking back. A legitimate mirror image. She had over-reacted in the extreme and that was the end of it. All the stress from the past few months, past few years actually, had added up and she'd simply imagined something that hadn't been there at all. Period, as her dad used to say. Period. End of discussion. But, the gardenias...

  A sign in a yard caught her attention as they passed. “Reynolds Construction.” Cass's father had been in construction. Could one of the half dozen men working on a partially built house be Cass? She wasn't sure she'd know him after all these years and, in any case, she'd gone by too fast to get a good look. Maybe one of them was his dad. She had no idea where Cass was these days. Not likely in town. The thought of him brought a warm rush of memories. He'd been a good friend, years ago. Though, in Cass's case, friend seemed a rather pallid word.

  She'd had plenty of dates back then, but the one she'd most wanted to come calling, never did. Cass. Once she and Leah had fought fiercely over the tall, broad-shouldered high school football hero who had never shown either of them more than a cursory romantic glance. Well, there had been that one night. A night that was engraved on her memory for all time. But he'd never called afterward. Nor had he appeared to have any recollection of what Kate thought of as a landmark experience. So much for high school crushes.

  For whatever reason, Bree never mentioned Cass. He could be living in Australia with a wife and ten kids for all she knew. Or right around the corner with a mother-in-law, raising buffalo in the backyard. Maybe—No, she wouldn't go there. That was in the past and had no part of today. None at all. Still, memories didn't change, and there was no harm in thinking of what happened a decade ago. Cass. Wonder...

  "Mom! Stop!"

  She braked hard. “What? What?"

  "The sign. See the sign in that yard? It says ‘Free Puppies.’ I can read it good. Free puppies. Can we go look?"

  "Oh Max.” She peered into the back seat expecting all her orchids to be on the floor after the sudden stop, but thankfully, the van was packed so tight they hadn't moved an inch. But the dog. Now. Today. “Max..."

  They were three blocks from home, the car was still laden with bags and boxes and orchids to carry into the house and they were both tired. But Max had been so apprehensive of the move to begin with ... And she had, after all, promised him a dog and it was, after all, a familiar house. She knew the owners. Knew them well. “All right. We'll take a look."

  The people had been friends of her parents. They were the Dixon s
isters, twins actually, unmarried and getting close to retirement age. “Unclaimed treasures,” her dad had called them. They'd run the bakery and tea room downtown since she was a child. Ruby June and Pearly June. A bit eccentric, well maybe a lot eccentric, but lovely women. Their car with its distinctive license plate, WUPEDO, sat at the curb. She'd known them all her life. Run in and out of their front door with almost the same regularity she'd run in her own.

  The Junes, as they were known around town, came out the front door to meet them, arms open. “How nice to have you home where you belong. That house is too nice a place to remain empty and fall into decay. It deserves someone to love it. Besides, we've missed you."

  Pearly June added, “Everybody in town's glad you're home. Why, T. Roy Blankenship was saying just yesterday, how nice it would be to have you back where you belong."

  Ruby June chimed in. “T. Roy's become a local politician. Knows everything in town worth knowing. But then, everyone we know is pleased you're back."

  Pearly June said, “And your friend at the school, Gabrielle. I ran into her at the grocery the other day. Besides,” this to Kate, with a hand on Max's head, “you always loved my sugar cookies and I'll bet this young man of yours likes them too."

  Kate remembered Pearly June from grade school days. She made melt-in-the-mouth cookies, but cheated at double solitaire something fierce. She needed to tell Max to be on guard. Pearly June loved to play cards and so did Max.

  Ruby June's eyes twinkled. “I'll bet he'd like to see Roxy's babies, wouldn't he?"

  Max's eyes had gone wide at the thought of homemade cookies and even wider at the mention of puppies. He nodded enthusiastically all the while allowing himself to be led toward the rear of the house.

  In a sunroom behind the kitchen, they found a large, three-sided box full of sleeping brown and white puppies. Max fell to his knees, his mouth open in wonder.

  Ruby June knelt beside him. “It's all right, Roxy. This nice little boy isn't going to hurt your babies. He just wants to get to know them. Can we show off how pretty they are?” The mother dog's nose sniffed Max's hand cautiously. Then her tail wagged and she licked his palm, accepting him. The puppies stretched, and yawned, and crowded around Max vying for attention.

  "They're even house broken, because we just couldn't bear to part with them,” Pearly June said. “They're almost six months old."

  Ruby June nodded. “But we want to be certain they go to good homes, so we're being real picky."

  "They aren't pure-bred,” Pearly June explained. “But,” she giggled, “they're smart. Our Roxy backed up to the side of a hill so that Nutmeg could get the job done. He's smaller than she is."

  "That means the puppies aren't likely to be any larger than our Roxy,” Ruby June chimed in, “so we aren't talking about a full-grown Godzilla to feed."

  Within fifteen minutes it was agreed that the Dixon sisters would keep the young male Max chose until they could pick him up the next day, Max finally tore himself away from “his” dog, a curly-haired, brown and white puppy with floppy ears and a waggly tail, and they were back in the car. He could hardly contain himself.

  "I've got to get a good name for him. What do you think?"

  "How about ‘Trouble?’ That sounds good to me."

  "Mom!” Max was offended. “He won't be no trouble!"

  Kate knew better, but let it go.

  For three blocks Max kept up a running chatter with possible names. Caesar. Attilla. They had been reading graded classics and it was plain to see he'd picked up on the names of the big guys. Then came Bubba and Bruiser and Killer.

  At wrestlers from World Wrestling Entertainment Federation, Kate drew the line. Max was considering the hugely muscled Neanderthals with so much wild hair in their faces no one could see what they looked like. “Uh ... Hang on. I don't think..."

  "How about Babe? You know the big ox. I like Babe."

  "Babe is usually a girl's name."

  "It can't be. Paul Bunyan wouldn't have no girl ox! I like Babe."

  Kate refrained from mentioning the famous pig by the same name. “You have all night to think about it."

  "Yeah. I have to be sure it's the right name, though. You know? It'd be awful to be stuck with a dorky name."

  "Right. No dorky names."

  And then they were at the house.

  Not giving herself time to consider the panicky rush in which they'd left only an hour ago, Kate picked up a pot containing a large flowering orchid in each arm, hung a bag containing two bolts of silk over a wrist, and followed Max up the walk.

  "Carry something in as you go,” she called as Max scrambled out of the van.

  "I need my mitt and my cars."

  "They're in the back, in a big plastic box. Blue lid. It isn't heavy. Can you manage it?"

  What if Leah was still there? What if she was in the mirror when Kate looked again? But she wouldn't be there. I wasn't possible for her to be in the mirror again! Of course, it wasn't possible for her to have been there to begin with. Kate told herself she'd simply over-reacted to what she thought she saw. Some kind of imaginary—something.

  On the top step she stopped to shift the Cattleya bearing clusters of dainty white blossoms to a spot higher on her hip, and glanced up. For a second, for one split second, she thought there was a shadow behind the curtain. It was gone almost before it registered and the automatic blink of her eyes only confirmed the sheer white curtain hanging quiet and opaque. Undisturbed. She was left wondering if she'd seen anything at all. Maybe a reflection from the street? But no cars had driven past.

  An air current, she thought, if anything. Something ordinary. She had to stop seeing things that weren't there. It simply wasn't possible for anyone to be in the house. The front door was still locked, Max couldn't get the knob to turn, and they hadn't opened another door while they'd been inside earlier. It was simply not possible for anyone to be inside.

  You're being paranoid. Just turn the key in the lock and go in. There's nothing there. Slanting her eyes right and then left, she did. Slowly. Cautiously. At the sill, she hesitated as tingling fingers of apprehension crawled up her back. Her feet didn't seem to want to move. Max ran past her.

  "Max!"

  "What?” His voice drifted down the hall.

  "Max, wait for me! Max, don't go—"

  "I'm in the kitchen. Can't hear you."

  She moved then. All the way in. No swirl of icy cold around her ankles. No pressure to push her back out the door. The house actually felt welcoming as it always had in the past. She realized with relief that whatever it was, was gone. The house was empty. Somehow, in her bones and tissue, she knew it.

  And, thank God, there was no other image in the mirror. Jaw set, willing herself to be strong, she made herself look, first thing—the stunning, white Cattleya orchid in one arm and a yellow blooming Oncidium in the other—knowing she'd not relax until she did, and then went limp with relief when only her own face appeared.

  In happier days, Cass had called her hair the color of good Scotch. That had been before she had known, first hand, what good Scotch looked like. She smiled. Her cork-screwy hair, pulled back in a silver clasp, was the same tawny brown and vigorously curly, but more controlled than Leah's had been. Her chin was a tad more pointed, not enough that anyone else ever noticed, but they'd always known. The two of them had walked with the same stride, worn the same jeans size, liked the same foods. They did not, however, have the same temperament.

  In the mirror, Kate examined the clusters of yellow Dancing Ladies on the Oncidium, framing her face. They looked like tiny ballerinas twirling on a long stem, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Just her. Only her and the orchids. Thank God.

  Turning slowly, she knew what she would see through the double door into the living room, and there it was. The portrait of herself and Leah above the mantle. Uneasily, she considered the likeness. They had both been eighteen years old with all the world in front of them. Their identical smiles were full of pr
omise and their laughing eyes were innocently happy. The picture had been painted a month before their graduation. Before the world had collapsed around their ears.

  Resolutely, she turned away. She had to get on with the day. There was a lot to accomplish before evening and being nostalgic about the past and frightened of her own shadow wouldn't get it done.

  A few of the orchids would go upstairs. Of the four bedrooms, one had a southern window with a wide sill that would be perfect for the fragile plants. She'd already planned to set up her silk screening table there with some of the plants right in front of her. It would be nice to have them so visibly available as models.

  "I can't find my mitt. I'm going back out to the car.” Max's voice floated up the stairwell as she climbed the steps.

  "Bring something back in both hands,” she called, and continued upward. “Not just one thing."

  She entered her work room, and placed the orchids carefully on the window sill, stepped back and examined the light coming in, then calculated that they would indeed get the required hours of diffused illumination, screened by a sheer curtain, they needed. There was even room for several pots of the shorter Dendrobiums. Good. They would do well on the window sill. She'd put up her big plant stand downstairs in the south-facing parlor, and that would mean orchids on both levels. Stunningly pretty when in full bloom, they would be lovely enough to lighten the darkest of days.

  And this was the perfect room to work in. Plenty of light coming from two exposures, and large enough for her silk screening frame and paints. Tomorrow she'd set up and get to work finishing the job she was working on when they moved. Creamy white Phalaenopsis, or moth orchids, with magenta spots in the center and delicate green leaves, all on a deep blue background. The effect was simply glorious.

  Leaving her rolls of silk and orchids, Kate moved down the hall to the bedroom she and Leah had shared for their entire lives. From the doorway, her eyes took in the twin beds, the posters hung on the wall, the pictures staring at her from the dressers. Two closet doors were closed tightly, but Kate knew what hung inside. Vastly different wardrobes. Vastly different stored hobbies. Flotsam from two entirely different lives.